Sweet Dreams, Alice
by Primavera Script
Summary: A sort of origin story for the Joker. Six months after the Joker has been locked up in Arkham, Alice Chelsea wakes up from an 8 year coma. No one seems to know her story, either, but she soon realises she knows his. Rating for some language & violence.
1. Welcome To Arkham

**A/N:** So this was something I started writing quite a while ago, but I got stuck with it. I was sorting through some stuff, started reading it through and, became un-stuck I suppose. So here is a (sort-of) Joker-origin story for you all. Hope you enjoy!

(And of course, the Batman world doesn't belong to me, just my ocs).

* * *

The shattering of glass was the first sound she ever heard. And when she could force her eyes to open, an older woman frozen in shock was the first thing she saw, and the first thing she would remember.

Alice felt her eyes close again, too sore to keep them open any longer. She tried to speak, to reach out to the woman, but everything ached and all that escaped her lips was a half-hearted whimper.

The nurse's voice seemed hushed, _Oh my Lord, oh my- I need a doctor in here!_

"Honey, are you alright? Open your eyes again if you can hear me."

She tried for a long time to wake up again, but she kept slipping away. It was hard when she felt so exhausted. Finally, she did open her eyes again, and this time she saw the sun. Thin white curtains fluttered lightly where the woman had stood before.

Alice blinked and this time her eyes stayed open. Before she could try to call out there was the sound of a door opening on the other side of the small room.

"Welcome back to the world, Alice."

***

**Welcome to Arkham…**

…_In Gotham's St. Bart's Hospital, a young woman has awoken from a long term coma… Eight years ago, we brought you the story of the brutal beating of 18-year old Alice Chelsea… After many long years, this miracle proves that God still has hope for the people of Gotham city… "Oh, yes, I would definitely say that such a recovery is almost unheard of"… Though the young woman has no immediate family in the area, well wishers have been …_

"Are you hearing this Karl?" The forty-something man nodded at the small television when his partner walked into the cage. He hung up his jacket and turned to glance at the screen as his partner flicked through various news stations.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Well, I mean, I remember hearing about what happened to her a few years ago, before I was working security in this nuthouse. "

"So?"

"Well, it's good to hear is all. Nice to hear about something that doesn't involve hospitals being blown up, you know what I'm saying?"

Karl's eyes darkened as he recalled the events a half a year past, "I suppose, but when she sees the world she's woken up to… Well, maybe it's not such a great thing from her point of view, huh, Frank?"

The two security agents sat in silence as the news anchor moved on to a story about a possible Batman sighting when a small red light on the boards began to flash.

"Speak of the Devil himself… What is that bastard up to now?"

The men were armed and out of the cage in seconds, Frank only stopping to buzz open the third floor gate. When they reached the bend in the hall everything was quiet and nothing looked out of place. Two large orderlies jogged up the hall toward them from the opposite end. A silent red light flashed above one door, signalling that the emergency alarm had been pressed, but the room was all shut up. Karl pulled the keys from his belt as the others stepped in around him. He unlocked the door and swung it wide, stepping back for the others as he pulled out his Taser.

In the middle of the concrete floor, partially obscured by the low cot, was an unconscious woman.

"Is that?…"

"Doctor Meyers?" One of the orderlies stepped forward and lifted the woman's head, "What happened?"

The psychiatrist's eyes shot open and she reached up to press her hand to the swelling purple bruise over her right temple.

"Where is he, Doctor Meyers?"

"I - I came down to check in on him. I didn't think he would try anything; I planned to sedate him. I mean he… He hasn't slept in almost three days. Not since we moved him to solitary for- for hospitalizing another patient over the remote control…"

"Oh shit…" Karl pulled out the Walkie clipped to his belt and started calling codes out all over the Asylum. He and Frank ran back down the hall to their gate and skidded to a stop to see it swung out.

A search and lockdown were conducted, but by two in the morning nothing had been turned up. Guards from each level met in the main entranceway and no one had anything to say. It wasn't long before the head of the Asylum arrived, accompanied by Commissioner Gordon and a small group of police.

Frank and Karl met with Doctor Meyer and the Commissioner in the administrator's office. The white haired man sat at is desk, one hand pressed over his eyes.

Finally the administrator spoke, "So, what number was this again?"

Frank coughed, "Ah, that would be three, sir.

"Three… It took that man, under solitary confinement, constant supervision, and as many sedatives as we could legally give him, six months, and three attempts to break out of Arkham…"

The silence weighed on everyone in the room for an interminable amount of time before Commissioner Gordon cleared his throat, "I think we could all use a drink."


	2. Thank You for Joining Our Broadcast

**A/N: **Part 2! Thanks to all the people who've added me to their story alerts, as well. Enjoy.

* * *

**Thank You For Joining Our Broadcast…**

_:Case recording 65249arkh - Dr. Ellen S. Meyers:_

"Alright, Doctor Meyers, the tape has started recording. Please start from the beginning."

The blonde woman removed her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. With a deep breath she began to recite what she had told both her superiors and the police commissioner already, "I went down to Patient 1034J's solitary cell planning to administer some sedatives. The patient hadn't so much as closed his eyes in the three days he'd been in solitary.

"And you went alone?"

"Yes. Obviously that was a mistake. I had assumed that a straightjacket and 72 hours without sleep would inhibit his usual… behaviour."

"Would you please recount the prior events that led to the Joker's confinement?"

Doctor Meyers paused for a moment, "We don't call him that here, officer. As part of his treatment, we are attempting to break him from that persona and calling him by his chosen pseudonym only enables him and helps to create the fear he thrives on. As we have no given name for him, he is simply referred to as Patient 1034J."

"I see. "

"No doubt by now your department has the security footage," Doctor Meyers sipped from her paper cup of instant coffee as she collected her thoughts. "When I arrived at the asylum on Tuesday, there was a commotion in the patients' common area. One of my staff was coming from there and he told me that Patient 1034J had attacked another patient. Fights in Arkham are hardly uncommon. We house the criminally insane here, and in many respects, Arkham is more a prison than an asylum, so you'll understand me when I say that this common area is little more than a cage to herd the patients into during the day so it's easier to keep an eye on them all. At the time, I assumed it was nothing worse that what we usually see when the patients get reactive, until, that is, I reviewed the security tape."

"What was it that made you decide to watch the footage, if you believed it was nothing unusual?"

"It's policy. We like to know what triggers events such as this and… I know this is difficult to believe, but the patient, while certainly violent, is not _bloodthirsty_; he's too detached emotionally to label him that way. That's what makes him so dangerous; a serial killer is predictable because he will always have the urge to kill, but that man… He is entirely indifferent to violence except in its capacity to create chaos. I believe everything he does, he does for a reason. Unfortunately, no one seems to be able to comprehend what that reason is."

"Then why allow him free movement?"

"At first we kept him separated. We were afraid he would try to manipulate the other patients, but you see, they're of no use to him in here so they hardly exist in his mind. Even allowing him to associate with the other patients, he rarely spoke to any of them. Actually, most of them avoid _him_."

"And what about the footage? What did you see on that?"

"Is it really necessary to go over that? You have the tape now," with a look from the officer, she sighed and continued on, "It was very short. He was sitting off to the side of the room, not moving, not looking at anyone or doing anything. But then at one point the patient rose and just stood staring. It was odd- he must have been watching the television but the camera is set just above it and it felt like he was watching me. It may well have been a mind game, he has been known to try them on the staff."

"Do you recall what it was that had caught his attention on the television? Maybe something that set him off?"

"Just the news, I think. The same stories they've been repeating all week. Nothing to illicit such a response. But then quite suddenly he's staring at a patient almost off screen and a split second later he was on top of him. One of the guards on duty told me the victim had changed the channel… All I could make out on the tape was his fist hitting the other man, over and over, and then the guards were finally on him. Without any warning signs he just- he bludgeoned that man nearly to death. As I mentioned earlier, Patient 1034J does not react emotionally like that. It was disturbing. And all the while he was, he was laughing like," Doctor Meyers stopped, laughing somewhat hysterically herself. "What is it, Doctor?"

"I was about to say, he was laughing like a lunatic."

***

Alice traced outlines over the fogged up window pane as the psychiatrist went over questions she had already been through with two other doctors. Her muscles were still weak from coma induced atrophy, but she could at least shuffle her way over to the plastic seat by the window now.

Perhaps the strangest part of waking up in a hospital room, eight years after her last memory, was the way all the nurses and doctors acted like they knew her. She supposed in a sense they did; they knew her body better than she did, in any event.

It was almost like a science fiction story. One minute, she's eighteen years old and the next she wakes up a grown woman. Alice didn't feel twenty-six, she _did _feel entirely uncomfortable in her own body. Every time she went to the bathroom, or caught her reflection in the window at night, she'd panic a little, thinking there was a stranger in her room. The strangeness of it all made it feel as if she had tumbled down the rabbit hole with her namesake.

"Did you hear me, Alice?"

"Yes, sorry."

"And…"

"Yes, I remember everything."

The shrink left her alone after that, and Alice was left to ponder all the niggling memories as they slowly returned. She hadn't been entirely honest with the man; she remembered most things. When she had woken up, though, a wave of panic had bubbled up in her chest and she'd thrown herself out of the bed trying to get way from… Something. They'd had to hold her down as they drowned her in sedatives. Whatever she had been trying to get away from, Alice didn't _want_ to remember it.

The panic was still there, though. Just beneath the surface she felt like there was something important she _needed_ to remember. Wasn't there supposed to be someone with her? There had been, she was sure. It had almost been the first question from her lips, but no. No one had even been to visit her. Not in all the years she had been at the facility.


End file.
